Faster-than-light travel
Faster-than-light travel is travel at a speed faster-than-light, abbreviated to FTL. FTL-travel can only be achieved by creating a Tagron Pulse. This Tagron Pulse creates a 'hole' in spacetime at the departure spot and at the destination spot and allows an object encased in a Falkman-bubble to travel through the tunnel created by these holes. As spacetime is 'folded' the two holes are really close together and that way you can effectively travel way faster than light. The "holes" are called "folds", and the tunnel connecting them is called the "foldchannel". The Tagron Pulse also pushes the object through the tunnel. Tagron Pulse The Tagron Pulse is the most vital part of FTL-travel as it is the thing that creates a supershort tunnel between the departure spot and destination. 'Tagron' is an abbreviation of Tachyon and Graviton and consists of a graviton particle orbiting a supercharged negative energy particle that always travels faster than light, a tachyon. How more negative energy the tachyon has how faster it goes. The strength of the Tagron Pulse is measured in 'tagron pulse units', or 'tu'. 1 tu means the Tagron Pulse can make a craft of 1 kg reach an effective speed of 1''c''. So 2 tu would mean an effective speed of 2''c'', etc. The first FTL-drive could create Tagron Pulses with a strength of 5.5 Mtu. A Tagron Pulse is made stronger by giving tagrons more negative mass, which will make it go faster. This stronger pulse will then fold spacetime more which will lead to a shorter tunnel and it will also propel the spacecraft faster. To create a Tagron Pulse one must first create a tachyon that at least goes a fraction faster than light. So even a tachyon with a mass -0.000001 yottagrams would do the job. The tachyon then has to be fused with a graviton. Gravitons are caught with a Graviton Catcher and then shot at the tachyon in an extremely energyrich environment. The tachyon will suck up the energy and the graviton will be brought in orbit. In this process the tachyon is almost given its final speed. The tagrons will then be bundled and will be shot into space at a very specific angle that will get them to exactly the right destination. Falkman-bubble A Falkman-bubble, named after Dr. Falkman (then Chief Researcher of Project Atlas and inventor of the bubble), is basically a bubble of folded spacetime were time goes slower for anyone within it because of the extreme gravitational forces that create it. It basically bends spacetime around an object, encasing it completely and protecting it. The side effect of slowed down time is actually useful because a trip of 10 light years takes about a month (with the standard speed of 120 tu used by Aeneas crafts) but only feels like a few minutes within the bubble. Energy requirements The creation of a Tagron Pulse takes a giant amount of energy and this is usually achieved with an H3R or an AAR. Larger ships usually use AARs as those produce more energy but antimatter fuel is extremely expensive so most convential spacecraft use a dedicated H3R for FTL-travel. Components A device that achieves FTL-travel is usually called a FTL-drive or a FTLD.